63rd Post – Adding - for Age in place

Week 14 of Construction

This is a question that a reader asked:  What are the age in place features do you have in your home?

My husband and I were looking way ahead when we were designing this home.  We look at our older relatives and see how they struggle with mobility issues that might someday affect us. 

So to help in our later years, we made some specific design choices:

Ranch style home - one level

Wide hallway

Enough room in our bedroom for wheelchair access

Bench in the shower with an adjustable showerhead and grab bar nearby

Walls on both sides of the toilet for grab bars later

Lever-style handles for doors

We will only have three overhead cabinets in our kitchen

Hardwood floors

A deck that has access from main living area without stair

A gentle sloop at the side of the house to access our yard

We have three zones in our home.  If you look at our plans, you will see that one side of the house we will be able to have someone stay and have their own space to help us, if need be.  I am sure there are others ideas for age in place, but these are the ones we thought of when designing our home.  

62nd Post – Sealing and Water Connection

Week 14 of Construction

We have been busy sealing up knot holes in 2 X 4 and anywhere else that tiny bits of air that was coming in during the blow door test.  Also taping the floors to prevent air traveling from the mini basement to our living space.  We did receive the finial number from this first test and it was a 0.4 ACH50.  This is very good news because PH standard is 0.6 ACH50, we have already met our goal.  But of course both Ethan and Ted want to get even lower.

These are good questions to ask a Builder before you start a PH home:

Do you perform blower door tests on your homes you currently build?  Would you give us a list of the homes you have built with their blower door test rating and the agency that preformed the tests (double check the results)?

This way you can see how tight they are building before they start a passive house project.  Ethan Beck usually is around a 1.0 ACH50 for the other houses he builds.

Here they are putting in the water main.

61st Post – One Year of Blogging!

Week 14 of Construction

One year ago I posted my first blog.  I thought it would be good to revisit the reason we choose a Passive House and our journey.  We really started about two years ago in the fall of 2008, when we made the decision to build a house that would be energy efficient.  We stated to investigate the different types of “green building” and what we wanted in a home.  Our first find was a great book that we bought and still look at today.

We would highly recommend reading this book before you talk with architects/designers or builders/contractors, we are glad we did.

Raising the Rafters: How to Work With Architects, Contractors, Interior Designers, Suppliers, Engineers and Bankers to Get Your Dream House Built by Stephen F. Collier

Afterwards we talked with different architects and designers and found their take on green building and the variety of “Green”. 

We did some more research and decided on a Passive House.

We contacted the Passive House Institute who put us in touch with the Passive house consultant in our area, Tad Everhart.

We met with him, June 2009, and he put us in touch with our designer. 

We made a list of all the things we would like in a house.  Some things we discarded after we researched them in depth.

Gray Water system- People we know put a gray water system in and everything in their new house was low water usage.  From the faucets, showerheads, front load washer and duel flush toilets.  They have so little gray water that their system hardly ever works.  We have the same in our PH, every water-using item is low flow or duel flush (little in, little out) - so no gray water system.

Radiant heated floors- it would be nice to have heated floors, but they need to be heating all the time in cold periods.  It is not an item that can be turned up and down because the rate of increase and decrease is so long they would also have to be heating at night and when we would be gone for work.  The radiant floors would be wasting energy, which we are trying to avoid, plus we were worried that they may keep our house too hot - so no radiant heated floors.

Rainwater catchment system – This is something we can add later.

Solar Panels – we already have the electrical and guts installed for when the timing is right.

After our list was complete and the design was coming together our next quest was for a contractor.  Not just any contractor, but one who was interested and willing to learn and grow as a builder.  At a gathering the other day, a person that works in the contracting world, said that people often treat their contractors like a doctor, taking their words for what they are saying and not doing their own homework.  If we could give any advise it would be to read, read, read…The Passive House Institute has resources.  Also the library has books, resources and DVDs.  Another place to glen information is YouTube.  Some are very good, but others are not reliable (checked who posted it).  Also don’t forget blogs…find out what works for them and what doesn’t.  Ask them questions, I am always willing to give information or send you to a realible source, if I can.  

We interviewed about 10 to 15 different builders and then had a short list.  Next I called every reference on their list.  Yes, that did take some time, but in the end it was well worth it.  The book above gives great questions to ask builders and references. 

Now we had the contractor in mind, Ethan Beck.  We had Ethan meet with Ted and us to pitch the build to him.  We needed him to be able to work with Ted and have a good exchange for both parties.  All of us, now on the same page were ready to progress.   At one point, after the plans were approved by the city in March, I thought we would be able to start right away.  But finding some products or waiting on information about our special air quality and heating system took sometime.

I would have liked the house to start sooner so we could have been in when school started but we wanted the house to be built right.   

This is a home we want to live in for a lifetime.   We made accommodation for our house to have age in place options.

Sorry this was so long, but I wanted to give everyone a good breakdown on our efforts to make this house something and we can be proud of and enjoy for years.

60th Post - On the New York Times article, 9/26/10: It doesn't cost that much!

You may have seen the New York Times article on the Passive House in Vermont (9/26/10). http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/business/energy-environment/26smart.html?hpw
While it is great that the method is getting some press, it is not so good that a builder gets away with saying that the costs are 15-20% higher (or that the owners are willing to pay 50K more). As the article and accompanying video report online indicates, the Vermont home uses pre-fabricated structural insulated panels for their walls. There are far less expensive ways to accomplish the super-insulated, nearly airtight shell necessary to meet the Passive House standard, as our project is showing. (Check out the results of the blower-door test in Post 59!) As for finding the designers and builders to do this, we had little trouble: Ted Nickell, our designer, was building passive homes and non-residential buildings long before the PH standard came to the US, and our builder, Ethan Beck, was already a commonsense, low-cost green builder before we asked him to take on our Passive House project. As for suppliers, because Ted has been doing this for a long time already, he knew the supply pathways we needed to tap, as did Ethan. So it is already true that you can build to this standard in America, not just in Europe, at just 2-3% additional cost (or less!) over conventional methods. And by the way, why do we keep saying “conventional” for the method most builders use? Perhaps it’s time for the language to change: the Passive House standard is conventional, and the “old way” is just that – outdated and ready to be left in the dustbin of history where it belongs in a world that needs our every effort to reduce our carbon footprint.

59th Post – Blower Door Test

Week 13 of Construction

First a big thank you to all the people that came to watch our blow door test!

We had our first blower door test done by Earth Advantage. For a passive house we needed to have a 0.6 CFM50 for passive house certification.  The test was completed we were at 0.47 CFM50. 

After the testing they left the fan on and McKenzie from Earth Advantage, went around with a smoke stick and looked for leaks in the house.  There were some leaks around the doors, mainly because we don’t have doorknobs on to pull the doors against the weather stripping.  We also had some leaks around the pellet stove but it was because the stove is not all the way installed.  They still need to put high fire caulking around the vents.  Once all these leaks are sealed and the other insulation and wallboard is in place, we should be even lower in our final blow door test.

Here is Ethan Beck our contractor, checking to make sure everything is ready for the test. 

Be Blue – Protect our sky – Replace weather stripping and caulk around your windows and doors.

58th Post – Preparing for the Blower Door Test

Week 13 of Construction

Tomorrow is the blower door test for our PH.    For our house to be PH certified it will need to achieve the 0.6 ACH (air changes per hour) at CFM (cubic feet per minute) 50 pascals which is written 0.6 CFM50.

What is it and how does it work?  Ok I could write about this information but I would rather have experts explain it.  So here are links to information:


Here is a blower door test from Habitat for Humanity:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNOfSYgt83w

These terms were taken from:

http://www.homeenergy.org/archive/hem.dis.anl.gov/eehem/94/940110.html

Blower Door Terms

Pascal. (Pa) A metric unit of pressure. 50 Pascals is about one pound per square foot. 250 pascals is about one inch of water column.

CFM. Cubic feet per minute. A rate of air flow.

Correlation Coefficient. The extent to which the individual pressure and flow readings correspond to an average curve. A measure of the accuracy of the test--should be above--99.

"C." The flow rate, in CFM, with a 1 Pa pressure difference.

"N." The slope of the leakage curve. A rough indicator of the average size of the individual holes. The higher the number, the smaller the holes. Many houses tend to be between 0.6-0.7. Less than 0.6 indicates the existence of major large holes, above 0.7 smaller holes tend to dominate.

ELA. Effective leakage area. The area (in square inches) of a hole which, with a 4 Pa pressure difference, leaks the same amount as the house.

EqLA. Equivalent leakage area. The area (in square inches) of a hole which, with a 10 Pa pressure difference, leaks the same amount as the house.

Leakage Ratio. Leakage area as compared to surface area. It equals the EqLA in square inches divided by the surface area in 100's of square feet. A good unit for comparing the tightness of different building shells. Less than 3-4 indicates a very tight house, more than 10-12 a very leaky one.* The recently born "Minneapolis Leakage Ratio" compares CFM50 with above-grade surface area in square feet. A value greater than 1 indicates a likelihood of opportunities for cost-effective improvements.

ACH. Air changes per hour, a description of leakage as compared to volume. The number of times each hour an amount of air equal to the volume of the building leaks out. Used for both blower door measurements and estimates of normal flows.

CFM50. The flow, in cubic feet per minute, with a 50 Pa pressure difference. Tight houses tend to be less than 1,200 CFM50, 1,500-2,500 CFM50 indicates a moderately leaky home, over 3,000 is quite leaky.*

ACH50. Air changes per hour at a 50 Pa pressure difference. Not to be confused with natural ACH. Houses with less than 5-6 ACH50 are quite tight and those over 20 are quite leaky.* Can be misleading in very small or large houses.

Natural Infiltration. The average amount, in CFM or ACH, that a house leaks under "normal" conditions. Cannot be measured by blower doors, can only be roughly estimated. Not constant, varies widely over time.

$/100 CFM50. An estimate of the heating cost (or the value of a reduction) of 100 CFM50. Depends upon climate, fuel cost, system efficiency, and payback assumptions. A very useful number for determining the cost-effectiveness of air sealing.

* These descriptions of tightness are roughly appropriate for existing houses; new homes can and should be tighter.

This site has details of setting up a blower door test:

http://www.infiltec.com/inf-btst.htm

The average house lets in air through walls, ceilings, windows, doors and lights.  Depending on your insulation and sealing of the home about 5.0 ACH to 7.0 ACH or more of the total house air volume changes per hour through those leaking areas mentioned above (also read Post 4).  It is like having a small window opened all day, every day to have fresh air exchange. 

Ways to help existing homes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2OgsOUwPrw&feature=related

57th Post – 2010 Passive House Conference

5th North American Passive House Conference

The Passive House Institute is having a conference in Portland Oregon, USA November 4^th through 7^th

Our home will be on the tour of passive houses.  If you want more information the link is listed below.

http://www.formwerksstudios.com/phius/TramEntry.swf

56th Post – Comparing “R” and “U” Values

Week 13 of Construction

Oregon State Code                     Our Passive House

Under floors              R 30                                    R 60

Walls                      R 21                                     R 85

Ceiling                     R 38                                     R 120

Windows                  U 0.35                                  U 0.11 to U 0.18

RIGID INSULATION

Double click to enlarge

Here is a picture of the rigid insulation foam that is being applied.  The foam is now on the walls of the mini basement, attic and family room plus they will continue tomorrow spraying the rest of the house.  They will spray all the walls that are located next to the outside to make our home virtually airtight.  There is about 1 inch or more of this rigid insulation and looking at it very close there is no sign of any leaks that could let air in or out.  

Here to the right of the picture is the outside wall and the space you see will be filled with fiberglass insulation for R 85 walls.

55th Post – Serious Windows

Week 12 of Construction

We are using the 725 series from Serious Windows.  You can find a link above in products.  Serious Windows make other series: a 525, 725, 925 and an 1125.  We choose the 725 because here in the Oregon Valley our climate is pretty moderate.  We range from 40F (4C) to 80F (26C) degrees.  There are times that we are over or under but there are few and last of short duration.  OK, moving on…the window frame is also insulated and the 725 is a double pane glass with a third film sandwiched inbetween and gas filled.  The 725 windows that we are using has U values that range from U 0.11 to a U 0.18.  http://www.seriouswindows.com/html/technology.html

double click to enlarge all photos

Most of the windows are located on the southern side of our house to allow heat gain in the wintertime.  What about the summer?  The long eves will block the sun in the summer (post 31).


There are other window companies that make high preformance windows the ones that I know of are:


Cascadia Windows and Doors
Energate
Optiwin Windows
Quantum Builders

54th Post – Prepping for the Future

Week 12 of Construction

My husband and I have been cleaning up the house.  We have cleaned the outside of debris and now we are working on the interior.  We need to clean out the cavities for the insulation they will foam in on Friday through Tuesday.  We also needed to have all of the prep work for anything we wanted in the house because of the foam insulation needs to seal any creaks or holes in the exterior walls.  We will also be taping seams in the floors to help prevent air movement from the mini basement and our living space. 

We can’t afford solar panels at this time but we want to have them in the future so we will have a net zero home.  Because our walls and ceiling will be thick with insulation, now is the time to put in the electrical wires and pipes needed for a solar system.  This will save us money and because we will not have to disturb the walls and ceiling cavities later.  So Ethan made the call and we had a company put in all the necessary guts of solar.  So when we are ready, they can put on the panels and the control board and we will be set. 

We also had a central vacuum system called Vacuflow put in.  It has a lower CFMs and will keep our house cleaner by sucking up the dirt and immediately sending it to the waiting canister that is outside the house.  Since we have a special air filter that cleans the air before it come into our house, we want to keep the dirt and dust out.  Both of these items had to be prepped before the foam and blow insulation is applied.

We also made a decision on the stove hood.  We are going to order the one hood and change out the motor.  It shouldn’t cost too much and then we will know that we have the motor with the correct CFMs (see post 51).

53rd Post – Windows and Prep for Siding

Week 11 of Construction

First, a big thank you to Ted Nickell for coming to the open house and greeting and explaining passive house concepts to our guests.  {A picture of the donation box for Habitat for Humanity.}

I finished caulking around all the areas that could be penetrated by air around the windows and doors.  Later a crew from the insulation company came in and started caulking and using canisters for the small foam areas like electrical boxes and outlets.  That same insulation company was supposed to come Monday to spray the foam in our house but the special equipment on the truck broke down and we will have to wait until the end of next week to start insulating.  This will push our move in date back a week to two.  But these things are unforeseeable and can’t be helped.

Yesterday they put in the Serious windows and installed the vapor rap for the house, plus the rain furring.  The rain furring (white strips) on the house will allow the rain, when or if it comes behind the siding, to drain away from our house.  If you don’t have a vapor rap plus furring, the rain may leak into the wood and seep into your walls.  There it may become moldy and lead to poor air quality and other health issues.  So there are a lot of good reasons to spend the little extra and protect your “outer shell.”

There is a new feature on Google Blogger that shows the stats for who and where my blog is being read.  So I thought I would share it with all of you reading my blog, so you can see where other people are reading this in the world.  Here is it.

United States 1,994 Canada 71 Germany 61 Brazil 20 Taiwan 18 Australia 11 China 11 Ireland 11 Russia 8 France 5

Hello to all of you!  If you would like more information about what we are doing, or want to just let me know how you like the blog, please leave a comment.  I love reading the comments.  It would be fun to see if we could make the blog go worldwide, send this on to your friends.  Next month I will show the stats again.

52nd Post – Finishing Projects

Week 11 of Construction

Here is an interesting link to the first passive building in the US it is called the Biohaus.  It is in Upper Minnesota where it can be verrrry cold.

http://www.waldseebiohaus.typepad.com/

The electrical, plumbing, and ERV work has been completed.  The final inspection on the framing passed.  Here is a great picture of Eugene, the framing subcontractor. He and his crew did a fabulous job of framing.  

Here also is a picture from the back of the house showing the doors. 

Ethan Beck is our builder, and I haven’t said too much about him, but we should: he has been great to work with on our house!  Almost all of the subs have told us without asking that he is the best.  We are very glad we found him.

51st Post – Stove Hood

Week 10 of Construction

Another issue that has been taking a lot of time is the range hood.  Ok, how hard can it be to pick out a hood for the stove?  Really hard!

The stoves and now vent/hoods are becoming enormous.  Professional style and almost restaurant grade stoves for homes are quite the rage.  I have a “professional” range, but I love to cook. We have food allergies and so we rarely eat out.  So my stove gets a workout.  OK, OK, I am justifying it.  Now for the hood, I have to find one that operates at or under 100cfm.  What does that mean?  The fan is pulling 100 cubic feet of air per minute.   The hoods are now so large and pulling so much air that the few 100cfm hoods that I found look apartment size.  It would be lost on the wall. 

I could go with a vent-less hood that has charcoal filters that pulls the air through the filters and then the “cleaned air” is re-circulated into the house.  I have a hard time figuring that cooking fish and other strong smelling dishes that I fix wouldn’t linger and infiltrate our house and furniture.  So the vent-less hood is not an option for us. 

So what to do about the hood?  The big problem is that our house will be so well sealed that it could lead to depressurization with a large hood with a big cfm.  What is depressurization?  It is when the air pressure is less than the air pressure outside the house.  

What happens in a regular house when there is a hood with a large cfm (lets say 400cfm or more) is that the great quantity of air being pulled out it needs to be replaced because of depressurization.  So if your windows are closed and you are running the big hood over your stove, a lot of air, be it heated or air-conditioned, is being sucked out of your house.  To make the pressure even, air will have to come into the house from somewhere else.  Where?  From your fireplace, ceilings, walls, even the ground.  This can increase problems in your home.  If it is damp outside, moisture will be brought through the walls and ceiling along with the air and cause mold.  From the ground gases could be drawn in, such as radon gas.  The furnace may have to have another vent from the outside put on to control the airflow so it doesn't destabilize the heating system.  Here are a couple of links to sites about hoods and air pressure. Check out the cfms on the stove hoods. Bigger isn’t better. 

http://www.homeenergy.org/archive/hem.dis.anl.gov/eehem/99/990113.html

http://www.epa.gov/iaq/homes/hip-combustion.html

We finally found a hood but we have to find out the lowest cfm it will pull.  The highest is 400cfm so we are hoping that that the low will be around 100cfm.  I could always run the hood on the slowest speed with the window slightly open or have someone replace the motor with a smaller one.  So there are options out there.

50th Post – Heating specialists and electrical work

Week 10 of Construction

Kitchen layout

First, we have decided on the person to make our cabinets, Neel Briggs of Big Branch Woodworking.  We have had our wood from the 200 plus years old White Oak that fell several years ago.  It was milled and dried and waiting to be made into something beautiful.  This is going to be our giving tree (see post 19). This has been an agonizing process of finding the right people and then deciding on which one to use.  You can find his web page in the contact page above.

Next, we have had Perfect Climate in working on the special ERV system.  Here you can see them meeting under the house in the mini basement to talk about the runs and how to make the system work as efficiently as possible.  They have been putting the pipes altogether. Here are some in the basement.

At the same time the ERV guys have been here the electrical contractor has been running lines.  They are talking and passing by each other trying not to be in each other’s way. 

The outside doors have been put into place.  So a lot has been happening.